


Stop Motion

by ivyfluoresce



Category: Prison Break, Tool (Band)
Genre: Animals, Comedy, Crossover, Crossover Pairings, F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Original Character(s), Pets, Polyamory, enjoy the easter eggs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:16:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23320816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivyfluoresce/pseuds/ivyfluoresce
Summary: A voyeuristic artist, a closeted kennel attendant, and an heiress to millions walk into a bar. Except the bar is a pet shop and there's a singing cockatoo.Gets dark at times. Trigger warnings included!
Relationships: Felicia Lang/Alexander Mahone, Maynard Keenan/Seth "Cherry" Hoffner, Michael Scofield/Sara Tancredi, Seth "Cherry" Hoffner/Original Female Character
Comments: 4
Kudos: 7





	1. Fruit

The clinginess of a cockatoo would put your girlfriend to shame. Seriously, this bird is like a chihuahua with abandonment issues. They cry when you leave them alone for longer than an hour, coax you screaming whatever filthy language the customers taught them the previous day, and throw tantrums complete with cage-banging and self-destructive behaviour. To Maynard, who grew up with fish, this would mean little more than a headache if it weren’t for bringing the empath out of him. 

_“Motherfucker! Muth-- MOTHER--”_

“No, Francis -- Mary. Mary. _Meh-ree._ Mary. Say it.”

The crest on the bird's head ruffled as he spun flouncily on his perch. Francis wasn’t particularly graceful, but he was quite intelligent as far as parrots went. To spice up the weekly routine of cleaning the birds’ enclosures, Maynard had been teaching them songs. Nothing important, just whatever came to mind. It started with Frank Sinatra, then moved to Janis Joplin, a little bit of The Beatles. Francis was doing well, relatively. Being a bigger bird, it wasn’t as crisp from his beak as it was from the smaller parrots’, but he learned the fastest and fed off Maynard’s energy. It was like teaching a class of small children, if the children were obsessed with rubbing their faces all over your work clothes. Maynard once caught them serenading a group of customers with Crazy Train by Ozzy. It was a mess, yet charming enough that they sold one of Francis' flashier cage-mates that day. It became tradition for Maynard to hum a tune while tending to their cages. They'd catch on, sing with or against him, and it made for a nice break from the relentless regularity of day shift. One fateful closing after the shop had cleared out and there was nothing left for Maynard to occupy himself with, he let Francis entertain him on the front counter. Francis danced a little, called himself a 'swanky little dude,' knocked over a thing of pens... Then began to sing a tune that caught Maynard’s attention. It all went downhill from there.

“Come on. _Mother Mary, won’t you whisper…”_ Maynard cooed softly, offering his forearm out to the bird. Francis nibbled Maynard’s finger, then stepped up. Over the three years Maynard had worked at the pet shop, his affinity for the birds grew. They were loud, they were needy, but they were sweethearts.

 _“Mother Mary… Mother Mare-Mary,”_ Francis squawked.

Outside of his passion for veterinary science -- the one he was pursuing a bachelor’s degree for now -- Maynard also dabbled in philosophy, psychology, geometry, and poetry, among other things. Really, anything that relieved him from his financial worries for any amount of time could be piled onto that list. Yet despite having taken glee club as an elective in high school, music hadn’t become a part of that mix until he discovered the birds would sing with him. _Sober,_ which formerly was a high school poem, now had a tune that he and Francis built on little by little ever since that fateful closing shift. None of Maynard's coworkers knew about the little choir he'd kick-started back there, but his manager gave him a raise when he realised the bird-related sales were on a steady upward climb since assigning him that responsibility. So, no, Maynard wasn’t bothered by their anxiety, because he learned quickly that teaching them music would turn their screeching into songs that earned them more positive attention. 

_“…Something, but the past is done?”_

“Mother Mary, won’t you whisper…”

 _“Motherfucker, won’t you-- won’t you--”_ and Francis’ cadence broke with a restless flapping of his wings. _“I want! I want!”_

“Good enough,” Maynard sighed, pulling the dirty newspaper lining the bottom of Francis’ cage out and kneeling to stuff it into the trash bag he’d brought with him. He was supposed to put the birds elsewhere while he cleaned their cages, but Francis was well-behaved and his cage didn’t need to be scrubbed down just yet, so he didn’t want to cause any additional stress. 

Francis bounced happily on Maynard’s arm and squawked over his shoulder, _“I am just a worthless liar! I am just an imbecile! I want! I want!”_

“Jeez, that’s kinda harsh, isn’t it?”

Maynard yanked his head up suddenly, smacking it against the edge of the cage door. Francis panicked at the jerky movement and started crying. His talons dug into Maynard’s forearm. One hand rubbing the back of his head and the other held a good distance from his face to avoid getting smacked by Francis’ frenzied wings, Maynard ducked back and looked for the source of the new voice. It was sweet, feminine, and matched to the face of a young lady whose cat-eyed lashes flared wide at the animal’s outburst. A customer. _Fuck._ Maynard hushed Francis and stuck his arm back into the cage to prevent him from attacking her. Francis hunched down and continued babbling once the cage locked.

“You scared him!” New voice. This one had some testosterone.

“I didn’t mean to!”

Maynard peered over his shoulder to study the couple. They were shaken. The girl clung to her tiny white purse as if it would protect her from the animal and the boy hovered behind her, only an inch or so taller, neck craned curiously. He wasn’t ‘feminine’ per se, but with the smaller jaw and the handsome slope of his nose, he wasn’t exactly bleeding machismo either. If it weren’t for the MSU lanyard hanging from his pocket, Maynard could’ve sworn he was still in high school.

“Are you okay?” the boy asked. He much resembled the girl -- red hair, bluish eyes, shorter stature, young adult. _Maybe siblings._ Maynard’s arm bore some dark red marks, but the three were unharmed otherwise. Francis was shimmying back and forth along his perch. He looked fine.

“S-Sure. Yeah. Jumpy bird. Can I help you?” Maynard straightened out his shirt and grabbed the trash bag from the floor. The siblings glanced at each other. _Maybe twins._

“We need advice,” the girl smiled. She was cute, in kind of a porny way. Her hair snaked in locks along her pale neck, modestly coquettish. “We’re looking for a pet, but we’re not sure what kind to get. Are there any you, like… Recommend?”

“I recommend them all,” Maynard responded frankly. “Depends on what you’re looking for. Calm? Hyper? Friendly?”

“Friendly,” the boy chimed in. His youthful charm beside her smudged plum eyeshadow made them look like a vintage horror movie couple. The dork and the daddy's girl.

“And calm. Or -- well, lively, but not obnoxious. Less than a dog, more than a… Fish.” The boy laughed at her. She smacked his shoulder. They were cute. And the boy had a great laugh. Maynard couldn’t help smiling. He grabbed the trash bag and cued them to follow.

“So… Less than a dog, more than a fish. How much room do you have? Are you home often?”

The girl trotted to catch up with him, her tiny flats clicking on the tile. “We have tons of room. Room for twenty cats and then some. But my dad’s allergic to cats, so no cats. And we want high-maintenance. Like, makes good company, but is also gonna keep me busy, you know?”

 _Maybe less porny, more Cosmopolitan magazine._ Maynard rounded the front desk, tapping the cashier’s back to get past him. LJ, who was gnawing on a green lollipop, scooted his stool in. Somehow, he still managed to do bare minimum on a slow day. Maynard slung the trash bag into the bin by LJ’s feet.

“You _want_ high-maintenance? That’s a first,” Maynard laughed. 

“Yeah, well,” the girl shrugged. 

Maynard came back out and led the siblings toward the back of the store. “No cats, no dogs, no fish, lots of space, high-maintenance, and lively, huh?” He stopped by a glass tank along the back wall. “How about these guys?”

The boy’s face lit up. “Bunnies!”

Maynard leaned into the tank and scooped out a little white ball of fluff. Its greyish nose twitched at the scent of new people -- the scent of pumpkin must have overpowered the rabbit worse than it did Maynard. A mad flitter spiralled up Maynard’s stomach. The swarm rose like nerves in his throat, near-nauseating. The white toes of the boy’s Converse were mere inches from Maynard’s sneakers, his head of carrot tufts tantalising the rabbit’s hunger. _...Freckles._

Meanwhile, the girl hung back, less than impressed. “…A rabbit?”

“I want it,” the nearer asserted. “Can I pet it?”

His aroma took Maynard’s senses for a spin. The spiral grew sickening. His mouth hung open, but it stole his breath and stifled his voice, so he nodded instead and watched the boy’s hand nest in the fur of the tiny animal. _Cologne. It’s on his wrist._

“How… How is a rabbit high-maintenance? Or lively?” the girl asked carefully, as if she was worried she’d offend someone. Her glossy lips screwed into a tentative frame around her teeth.

 _Pumpkin cologne. Perfume?_ “Heresy!” Maynard joked a little forcefully. “Rabbits don’t bark or chase their tails, but they’re _definitely_ lively -- and require a lot more attention than you’d think. They need lots of room to run around, fresh hay readily available, and constant health-checks. They need toys, too; their teeth and nails grow continuously, so chewing and scratching on things is how they keep them the right length. Preferably, those things aren’t your fingers. Rabbits get sick very easily, so you need to keep an eye on their socialisation, droppings, and appetite. If they’re sneezing, crying, won’t pass stool, or it’s too runny, you need a vet. Brush and pet them to keep their fur unmatted. Wash their cage weekly, clean it up every day or so, keep the bunny itself clean, obviously…”

This overload of information didn’t seem to faze the boy’s enthusiasm at all. _If that’s her perfume, they might be a couple._

“Okay…” the girl murmured. “So they’re a lot of work.”

“And very entertaining when they’re happy. Do you know what a binky is?” Maynard forced himself to raise his gaze.

“...Like, a pacifier?”

“Heh, no. A binky is this _thing_ rabbits do when they’re excited... They run around and jump, and wiggle midair.”

“Aww,” the boy gushed, scratching the bunny between the ears. Every time he pulled his fingers back, they brushed Maynard’s chest. The spiral descended from a carousel- to a mad frantic rotor-blade pace. His breath struggled. He looked at the boy, maybe two inches shorter than him and smiling pleasantly, oblivious to the chaos he was wreaking on Maynard’s heart rate. _She said ‘we’ want a pet. They live together. But she mentioned her dad. They’re siblings. They have to be. They look my age. Probably freshies._

“Yep, little… Twisting hops to express glee. And sometimes they do this flop -- a ‘dead bunny flop’, some people call it… Uh… Just drop onto their side and stretch ‘cause they’re… Content. Or-or headbutt your leg or your arm or…” Maynard bit his tongue when the boy looked at the girl excitedly. She looked like a mother trying her hardest not to cave to a child’s pleading puppy eyes. _Definitely not siblings. Fuck._

“A rabbit, it is. Who’s this?” The girl surrendered, reaching in to stroke the bunny.

Maynard breathed in as deeply and discreetly as he could, hoping maybe he could catch a whiff of her too. _Fruity?_ “This is… Well, she doesn’t technically have a name. We’re not supposed to name them, so we don’t get attached when they’re sold. But I’ve always called her Jambi. She’s four months, not neutered yet. A lawn mower when it comes to food, very social… Binkies galore.”

That made the boy smile. The girl grumbled a little playfully. _Fruity. Strawberry, maybe, but sharp. It’s nice, actually, whatever it is._ “She’s a cutie. Does she need shots or anything?”

“Nope, totally vaccinated. Like I said, she just needs to be neutered. I could try and score you a discount if you want to schedule that now with our in-house vet.” _So he just… He likes pumpkin?_

That idea appealed to the customers, but he pulled back a bit when they tried to scoop Jambi from his arms. “Not so fast. You need to leave prepared to home and raise a baby bunny. Are you sure you don’t want to explore other options?”

They glanced at one another. They didn’t need to speak. Their minds were made up. The corner of Maynard’s lip tightened.

“Come.”

The rabbit squirmed in Maynard’s arms as he led the customers through the aisles. She was getting antsy. Friendly as Jambi was, she wasn’t a huge fan of being held. The helicopter beat in his chest soothed a little; feeling the rabbit’s legs wriggle against him reminded him that he was still in the pet shop, still surrounded by the same animals as he’d been surrounded by for three years. _They’re just customers. I don’t even know their names._ He was just doing his job, and Maynard was only as interested in them as he was because he could use them to milk his paycheck. The anxiety was unnecessary. _She’s super pretty, but she’s not going to distract me. I don’t even like strawberries that much._ Maynard stopped when he reached the cages and asked, “You said you have lots of room, right?”

“Right,” the girl tucked a velvety tress behind her ear. _See? Pretty, not distracting._

“Jambi can have free-reign of the house,” the boy added, eyes soft and locked on the pet. Maynard’s eyebrows pulled together suddenly. _...Fucking Adam._

“Great, so you don’t need a huge cage -- just a place for Jambi’s food and litter box. Take her,” Maynard dumped the responsibility somewhat spitefully on the boy, smothering out with a chloroform cloth the butterflies that sprung when their skin touched again. He had a job to do. Maynard knelt by the lowest row of cages and pointed one out. “How’s this?”

The girl knelt beside him. “You tell me.”

“It’s brilliant.”

“Then it’s brilliant,” she declared resolutely. _I fucking love strawberries._ Maynard returned the smile and pulled the wire cage out for her.

As she and Maynard finished fetching the other rabbit-related necessities, Jambi grew restless. Maynard took her so that the boy could help his twin/girlfriend/whatever they were purchase the supplies, then walked them to the register where the stick of the lollipop in LJ’s mouth danced around leisurely between his lips. Meanwhile, Maynard’s mind played Francis, echoing it, _I fucking love strawberries,_ back and forth, because it was the only way he could keep the pulse in his neck from becoming painfully obvious to the people around him. That way, he could fumble Jambi when he took her back without feeling an ounce of guilt. The boy got blushy and apologetic because he assumed his inexperience with the animal was to blame, his breathy laugh twirled at the bleached curls of Maynard’s mohawk, and Maynard could parrot that phrase to himself, his personal credo, to make it irrelevant to him. Besides, who could fault Maynard for being attracted to the feminine flair of such a fruit? No one. Not even Adam, who smirked at him knowingly from the door frame of the grooming area. _Because strawberries are fucking fantastic._

Maynard focused on that mantra when he brushed past Adam. He’d offered to give Jambi one last grooming before sending her off, so his goal now was to get that done before LJ, who looked bored out of his mind at how slow business had been that day, had the chance to screw over the kids' first impressions of the store. Being that Adam seemed to prefer eyeballing Maynard over doing his job, Maynard put the bunny on the counter and set off brushing her.

“Cute kid, huh?” Adam egged, hovering around his friend.

Maynard gave him a brief look. “Feeling fruity, Adam?”

“Would it be bad if I was?”

When Maynard ignored that question, Adam plucked the fine-toothed comb from his hand to take over. Jambi chittered softly. Her glassy black eyes stared blankly out into the world, but she seemed much happier now that she wasn’t being held four feet from the ground.

“You don’t have to say anything,” Adam sighed innocently. “I know you won’t. I’m just saying. Love’s in the air.”

Maynard scoffed. It was early autumn. Everything was dying, not fucking. But Adam didn’t need to explain himself any further, because he knew that when Maynard would look dubiously in his direction, he’d see the vet through the window to her workspace, twirling her phone cord, feet kicked up on the table, smiling a smile so rare for someone as staunchly professional as Dr. Sara Tancredi. Maynard would be left at a loss, he would swallow his denial, and he would return to that same damn silent treatment he always gave Adam when his underwhelming love life was brought up.

...Which he did.

While Adam brushed out a pile of fur that looked like it itself could hop away, Maynard readied a kennel for Jambi, complete with a fresh blanket and a woven grass ball for her to chew on. When Adam finished clipping her nails, he tied a little paisley bow to a tuft of fur by her ear.

“Cute,” Maynard remarked.

“Trying something new. You like it?”

Maynard picked Jambi up and fed her into the cage. She seemed preoccupied by the bow, but wasn’t trying to pull it out yet.

“Is it safe?”

“It’s cotton, it’s fine. Google said so.”

“That’s like asking WebMD if you have cancer. You should ask Sara before you do it again.”

“Yes, sir,” Adam retorted. “Trade the rabbit for the ginger’s phone number. Ten bucks says it’ll work.”

Maynard grabbed the cage and fled to greet the couple again. LJ was engaged in some lousy debate with them, twirling his lollipop around in one hand like a faded valley girl. Knowing LJ, it was probably an edible.

“Sorry for the wait,” Maynard held out the kennel. “She’s got a brand new blanket in there. We brushed her, cut her nails, all that good stuff.”

“Can you believe this chick would date Nicolas Cage?” LJ left-fielded. Everyone turned to the girl. Maynard slowly lowered the kennel to his side again.

“You conveniently fail to mention that my other two options were Adam Sandler and Steve Harvey.”

The way LJ scoffed at that would make you think fucking Ghost Rider was a capital offence. “The fact that you answered at all is bad enough. Jesus, Maynard, would you get this animal away from me?”

The boy took the kennel with an almost apologetic smile. Maynard hoped LJ wasn’t leaving all of the customers with that poor of an impression. Justin, the manager, had left Maynard with the responsibility of getting LJ situated with the store’s culture, so when word reached him -- it always had, in Maynard’s experience -- it wouldn’t bode well for Maynard. If LJ’s last words to the girl were any indicator of his previous work, Maynard would have to start scrambling together a new resume soon. 

“...That stuff should be enough to get Jambi settled in. Did LJ get your appointment with Dr. Tancredi set up?” he tried.

“He did,” the girl confirmed. She must’ve been smiling -- her voice held that same up-spoken tone as it had every other time she smiled at him -- but he couldn’t confirm it through the curtain her hair made around her face. She shook it away once she found a comfortable arrangement to hold the supplies with. “Thanks, LJ. And thank you, uh… _May-nahrd?”_

Maynard smiled, shrugging a little to shake her gaze from his name tag. “My pleasure. Do you need help carrying that to the car?”

“Oh, no, we’re okay. But really, we’ve been wanting a pet for so long, just were hesitant about it, you know? You really helped mitigate that fear. You know your stuff.”

“You should write that down and tell it to my boss,” Maynard dismissed humbly. “I’m here if you need anything else, okay?”

The two gathered their things, said their goodbyes, and headed out. Overall, they didn't seem entirely repulsed by the experience. _Maybe I'll see them again._ Maynard’s picture-perfect view of them leaving to the early evening glow was rudely interrupted by LJ's groaning. He was hunched over again, spamming the home button of his phone.

“Thirty more minutes, bud. Hang in there.”

“Literally no one came in today,” he sulked. “Except for them, it’s been like the fucking apocalypse in here, man. I could’ve been playing Siege.”

“You’re right. Maybe I should talk Justin into letting me teach you how to clean the puppy pen. You know, so you’re not so bored.” 

LJ wore the most betrayed expression. “Oh… Oh, that’s dirty, Maynard.”

He squeezed LJ’s shoulder as he passed behind him. “Bring a book next time.”

As stereotypically teenage as LJ was, he was a good kid. Not the best employee or the best student, and his father probably wouldn’t deem him the best child either… But past the hardass guise of rebellion, his heart was in the right place. Once Maynard had finished coaching him on how to operate the cash register, greet and send off customers, handle refunds and exchanges, and open and close the store, he lost the bonus he was gaining for these extra tasks. As a college student struggling to keep a roof over his head for the summer break, this wasn’t exactly heartening news. He was quite cozy with the manager, consistently working overtime, and always fretting about rent -- all facts he tried his best to hide from friends and coworkers. Maynard’s financial struggles must’ve been to LJ as Francis was to Maynard, because it was upon cleaning out his lunch pail after a long day that he discovered the empath in LJ... In the form of a box of live crickets beneath his dirty tupperwares. Being that they were short-staffed that day and LJ had recently learned about Maynard’s geckos, he knew where he was placing his bets. It was a box he recognised from the store’s backroom and the same banded crickets as those they sold. True to his M.O., LJ had smoked his last paycheck away. He probably stole the crickets. Still, no amount of guilt would erase the fact that Maynard was more broke than he’d ever been in his life and LJ had just saved him the cost of a month’s worth of pet food. From then on, he began picking up on the other little things LJ did: playing dumb in front of the manager to make a role model of Maynard, speaking highly of him to others, hinting at coworkers and the like to take Maynard places that would force him to break his menial routine. Again, Maynard couldn’t in good conscience _like_ these acts of charity, but the responsibility of remaining self-sufficient and keeping his pets healthy smothered him into silence. The last raise Maynard got was undoubtedly a result of this. He took what he was given and kept his thoughts to himself.

A simplistic bass riff greeted Maynard to his manager’s office. Practicing was how Justin coped with the slow days. He was pretty good at it, even if he wasn’t playing anything fleshed-out, so no one minded too much. As was true for the rest of the shop, his office was dim, just the lamp on his desk to illuminate the strings he plucked. Chewing on a thumbnail in the corner of the room was one of the shop’s shelf stockers, Danny. He noticed Maynard upon looking up from his phone.

“Justin,” he notified. Danny couldn’t clock in until after hours, but always showed up early to keep up with the friends he’d made in his last position. That included the manager himself.

Justin lifted his head and smiled. “Maynard. I’ve got a letter for you. From… ‘Loren Keenan’ -- I assume he lost you after the semester ended?”

Maynard stepped forward to take the envelope. Addressed to Maynard from Loren -- his father. He’d forgotten to give his parents his new address. Again. He'd made the same mistake after freshman year.

“Bit old school, sending a letter,” Danny remarked. _Sure,_ that was one way to put it. Maynard forewent a phone to save money. He was bigger on emails. It was his father who was old school. But Maynard didn’t want any more pity than he was already handling from LJ.

“Thanks, Justin. Hey, uh… Would you happen to have any overtime available?”

“Again?” Danny sat up.

“Can’t get enough of this place, huh?” Justin laughed. “He’s learning from the doc. Wants to be a vet.”

Danny mouthed _‘oh,’_ and returned to his phone. The two were very neighbourly. Danny was the one who showed Justin around town when he first moved from London. Maynard would even wager that he scored Justin the job. But chronic underachievement meant Danny still got into more trouble than even LJ did. Justin was far from lenient with him. 

“Brad’s taking Sunday and Monday off. Either of those work for you?”

“Both.” Something inside Maynard died.

“Huh,” Justin jotted some information into the schedule. “You could stick around today with Danny and Sara as well. Doc told me she wanted a word with you.”

“Sure. Yeah. How late?” _Please tell me to go home._

“You can close if you’d like.”

 _Fuck._ “Sold.”

Justin finished his notes and picked up his bass again. “All this overtime’s gonna do your resume miracles. Don’t overwork yourself, alright?”

_Wouldn’t dream of it._

Maynard nodded curtly and turned just in time to watch the door swing shut behind LJ. _Four o’ clock._ From then to closing stretched five torturous hours, only two more of which would be curbed by Justin’s dulcet harmonies. _One night closer to paradise,_ he thought cynically, eyes tracking LJ out of view. For the first time since he was nine years old, Maynard envied the superficial life of a teenager.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aha, I've finally gotten around to publishing my first story on AO3. I've been meaning to do this for months now. :)
> 
> I'm D (avid manwhore of Tool, Prison Break, and bad jokes), coming at you from the corporate shithole that once was Wattpad. I'm in a delicate state as you might imagine. Be gentle. If you want to follow my work, make a friend, and/or discover an arch-nemesis with whom you form an increasingly sexually tense rivalry until we inevitably hate-fuck and fall madly in love, my Twitter is @/iviesfluoresce (U before the O... common mistake). Can't wait to wake up tomorrow and regret this A/N. Love y'all.


	2. Negligence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW // Verbal domestic abuse, discussion of religion and violence, mentions of homophobia, dark references.

In the mind of a theist, religion is the highest judicial system. In Christianity, you’re deemed worthy or unworthy of heaven. Were you saintly enough to beeline paradise? Were you such evil that not even purgatory can save you? In Buddhism and Hinduism, it’s Nirvana or Moksha respectively versus karmic reincarnation. Are you cleansed enough yet to stop your own cycle of suffering? How many lives do you need to live before you internalise this set of principles? Have you proven yourself? It’d be fairer that way; justice served without bias, without discretion, by beings who see, hear, and know all. Who are those beings, though? Specifically? God, or gods? In Islam, it’s the Angel of Death. You come before the Angel of Death on Judgement Day, and your time on Earth determines your sentence.

The Angel of Death is effective in ensuring only the pure can enter each respective paradise, but so inconvenient to the living.

Have you read the story of Albert Fish? Or Josef Mengele? Well, those are a bit twisted for a story about a college kid in a pet shop… You can read into the nitty-gritty in your own time. Albert Fish was the definition of scum of the earth, yet he lived for sixty-five entire years before the law of the land back in 1936 strapped him to The Chair. Only a fraction of the people whose lives he tore apart were ever recorded, but imagine what one man with that level of vitriol could do in sixty-five years on a planet filled with unsuspecting victims -- on a planet where justice takes sixty-five years to be served.

But anyone with half a brain could tell old Fish for the degenerate he was upon seeing his cruelties, which is what makes him so different from Josef Mengele. Mengele was a doctor during World War II, a pillar of knowledge and faith in his community. He worked in the concentration camps, was known by the Jewish children as _“Uncle Mengele,”_ because he doted on them and brought them sweets. Mengele wasn’t Jewish himself. He did, however, work with Jewish inmate doctors, one of which said of him: _“He was capable of being so kind to the children, to have them become fond of him… To think of small details in their daily lives, and to do things we would genuinely admire, and then, next to that, the crematoria smoke… These children, tomorrow or in a half-hour, he is going to send them there.”_ Mengele took twins, dwarves, pregnant women, and those with physical disabilities from the groups of people being sent to the gas chambers and he performed inhumane experiments on them. He came to be known as _“The Angel of Death.”_

The dead can look to their spiritual judge for justice, but the living are left to rely on the government. In the case of early 1940’s Jews, that was the same government who praised Josef Mengele for his ‘findings’. Whatever you believe, whichever religion you attend to, can we not agree that the world of the living would be a better place if we had a different Angel of Death to look to than Mengele on Judgement Day?

Just something to chew on.

In theoretical Greek mythology, you wouldn’t have to wait to die to see true justice. Crimes were judged in a court of the gods; they involved themselves occasionally in humans’ trivial matters. The story of Orestes is one such example -- and it’s one of Maynard’s favourite Greek myths. Orestes was one child of three borne by Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, king and queen of Mycenae. Agamemnon sacrificed one daughter to gain the loyalty of the gods before riding into the Trojan War. Orestes’ mother was horrified by this, and, grief-stricken, found a lover with whom she ruled over Mycenae: Aegisthus. Together, they plotted her revenge. When Agamemnon returned victorious, they murdered him. Orestes, still very young at the time, was taken by his older sister Elektra before they too could fall victim to Aegisthus’ rage. For years, they lived outside the kingdom, and when Orestes reached manhood, he sought to avenge his father’s death.

In all likelihood, he was clueless to his father’s actions prior to the Trojan War. In some versions of the myth, he was still an infant when Elektra ran away with him. When Orestes got his revenge, murdering the king and queen of Mycenae, he was plagued by the deities of retribution: a group of chthonian goddesses known as the Furies. 

The Furies prosecuted Orestes for matricide in the court of the gods. They believed Clytemnestra’s crime was one of passion -- her husband had murdered her eldest daughter, and it broke her. 

In their torment, Orestes found his guilt.

All he knew of his mother was Elektra’s words, the ones he was raised on, and now her blood covered his hands.

To Maynard, that was the moral of the story. Negligence doesn’t excuse crime. Clytemnestra didn’t know Agamemnon sacrificed his daughter for the gods’ approval; she only knew that he’d slain her own flesh and blood. Orestes didn’t know his mother had her own vendetta to seal; he only knew her murder had caused his trauma. In neither case did ignorance make murder acceptable, but only in one case did it plague the clueless with guilt for what they couldn’t have known.

To Maynard, Orestes wasn’t a Greek symbol of vengeance. That was Elektra’s story. Orestes was just collateral.

“Ow, fuck!”

Orestes was also a hungry iguana trying to escape Maynard’s kitchen sink.

The reptile’s jaw had clamped down powerfully on his finger through the sturdy leather gloves. Orestes was relatively young, only about a foot long, but he was mostly tame. The only times Maynard had issues with the biting was when he wasn’t being too careful while feeding him his greens. Considering the impressive essay Maynard had drafted in his atheistic head, he knew it wasn’t the animal’s fault he got distracted.

_“...In Custer yesterday morning… Family terrorised, brutal robbery… Emergency room, fifteen-year-old Kassidy Mars left with a fractured jaw…”_

Maynard slipped Orestes another leaf of spinach and lifted his eyes to the TV in his living room. That was the third Michigan robbery reported this month, and it was only the twelfth. Blurred images of the family’s injuries flashed across the screen. It wasn’t nearly as gruesome as last week’s, but considering that this family consisted of a single mother and several children, that was a relief.

_“Similarities in recent targets lead local police to speculate a connection between recent break-ins and the Scottville burglary spree of ‘05. Sheriff Lang suggests a shift in motive may refute this theory.”_

In 2005, Maynard was in third grade. He vividly remembered that spree. He pulled his hands out of the sink. The girl who sat next to him had missed several weeks of school before the class was informed that her family had fallen victim to the thieves. Naturally, their peers questioned what one fact had to do with the other. The burglaries in 2005 weren’t violent in any way. The criminal -- a woman, based on witness accounts -- would ascend several stories and pry open windows with a screwdriver to gain access. She stole valuables while the residents were gone or asleep, and made her escape. The most threatening thing she was guilty of was vandalising family photos. Even the nights she was spotted or the time she was run off a property with a baseball bat, she never caused harm to another human being. Fifteen years could change a lot, but the thought that the burglar would turn from such a strict moral code to fracturing a teenager’s jaw unprompted was jarring.

Orestes splashed around in his bath, nails scraping against the inside of the sink as he attempted to swipe another leaf. The face of the county sheriff, Felicia Lang, appeared onscreen.

_“The burglaries of ‘05 and the robberies of late have very little in common. We all want answers, I understand, but we cannot allow ourselves to be misled by fear,”_ she asserted. According to LJ, Sheriff Lang was just as stern in person as she was on TV, and radiated an admirable initiative. Why exactly LJ knew that was none of Maynard’s business. _“Although my team’s findings don’t support the theory of the two perpetrators being one and the same, we are humouring the possibility of a different type of connection. As of last Thursday, we’re joined by Michigan’s best: Detective Alexander Mahone.”_

A shot of a man took Lang’s place, maybe forty or so, hair only semi-kempt. The way his sinewy form hid away in a puffy black parka suggested he hadn’t planned on being bombarded with cameramen in the middle of the police station parking lot. The dark circles under his eyes matched the koozie wrapping his coffee. Detective Alexander Mahone secured Maynard’s sympathy just as quick. Reporters flooded him with inquiries, but the most he returned was a judgy leer toward the camera before the program’s eye swapped back to the newswoman.

_“Anonymous sources disclose that although the transgressors’ opinions of the victims and their social statuses line up in both sprees, the methods in which they express them are where similarities diverge. The cat burglar in ‘05 was infamous for vandalising the homes she broke into, leaving political messages in her wake. Family photos and symbols of wealth would be stolen or vandalised as well, whereas more recent robberies take a less didactic approach. From destruction of property to outright violence, this person -- or people, sources hint -- must have another motive. Rumours of a connection between the two still run rampant. After all, the burglar of ‘05 never was apprehended. Could it be the same woman? Stick around; we’ll take a closer look. More at eleven.”_

Maynard turned back to the kitchen sink once they started discussing the weather. For news that seemed to roll so easily off the tongues of media figureheads, it bothered him. It wasn’t that it was disturbing; Maynard had seen a lot in the twenty-one years of his life. He was far from the sensitive type. But the thought of 2005 resurrecting hung on him in a way he couldn’t place. 

Those burglaries were Maynard’s first encounter with real human apathy. Out of respect for what the family was enduring, he kept his nose out of it. But people talked, and they didn’t always have the nicest things to say. That girl’s family, they must have been overreacting by keeping her home from school. They lost some money, some replaceable trinkets of the thousands they owned to a woman widely known to be harmless, and they were acting like their lives were in danger long after the fact. If they were really that scared, why didn’t they explain everything to the police? Why did they hide inside like sheep waiting to be slaughtered? They weren’t trapped. If they hadn’t wanted to be robbed, maybe they should have invested in better security. What, all that wealth, and they couldn’t even keep a girl with a screwdriver from climbing in the window overnight? Anyone else would have handled it better. It was so, so easy for people to spit their abuse from the outside looking in. Everyone practically ignored the girl when she came back to school, too cowardly to say any of it to her face, but she would have told them the same way she did Maynard that her mother was petrified by the knowledge that their privacy was so rupturable. Home was a place of safety, but she knew better than ever now that there was no real way she could protect her family. So she kept her daughter home from school, fired the nanny, and went overboard on security purchases, but nothing would keep the nightmares at bay and nothing eased her nerves.

If that was really what was bothering Maynard though, he would have been disturbed every time he saw customers scolding their children to the verge of tears. He wasn’t. He just wrote it off as harsh parenting. What happened in ‘05 wasn’t Maynard’s trauma to bear. So why did it weigh so heavily on him?

Maynard pinched another bunch of spinach and tossed it into the sink to keep Orestes occupied while he turned the TV off. He needed to get his mind off the misery of the world. It wasn’t helping him wind down.

By the time Orestes was finally ready to retire, Maynard was just about half-asleep himself. He swapped off the lamp in the iguana’s enclosure, ending Orestes’ little session of post-supper sunbathing, changed out his water, and checked on his geckos before allowing himself leisure. He grabbed a beer on his way to bed.

Every day since college was out had roughly this same routine. Wake up, work for as long as Justin would allow him to, drive home, take care of the pets, then cue existential crisis and financial worries until sweet slumber finally gave Maynard a break from it all. He mostly had to rely on his own thoughts to keep it from becoming unbearably mundane. Sometimes the cycle was cut into by Danny inviting some of the guys to the pub, or sometimes an especially loony customer, but his only delights as of late had been conversation and happenstance. Today’s delights: Francis’ new vocabulary, the note Maynard had left on his nightstand, the way Sara couldn’t stop smiling while demonstrating how to administer a rabies vaccine, Justin’s artful fingers drawing across the strings of his bass, the thrums it’d sent haunting through the empty dim store… The redheads.

Maynard sat at the edge of his bed and cracked open his beer. It was only _10:14,_ but exhaustion had him feeling like he had to wake up in three hours. The letter from his father glared at him from beside the digital clock on the nightstand. He hadn’t read it yet. Those notes always made him homesick. It’d been nearly a year now since he’d seen his father, and longer since he’d seen his mother. He missed them. He missed his mom’s incessant religious rambings, missed how none of them made sense to him. And he missed the nights he’d go through the motions of his bedtime routine, listening to her through the wall, reciting the same five-dollar phrases she did every night. _“Father, tender shepherd, hear me. Bless this little lamb tonight. Through the darkness down near me, keep him safe till morning light. Lord, guide me safely on my way, show those I love and those I don’t Your light, Your love, Your grace…”_ Then, a contemplative silence, which Maynard refrained from interrupting. Sometimes she cried. Then she finished with a resolute _“Amen,”_ at which point Maynard could pitter-patter into the room in his Animaniacs jammies and harass her to let him stay up for another hour. She couldn’t write much anymore thanks to Maynard’s manipulative asswipe of a stepfather. In fact, when Maynard was fifteen, she talked him into moving in with his father as a result of said asswipe. Because she’d been paralysed from the waist down by that point and Maynard’s stepfather controlled nearly every move she made, she couldn’t set him up with a ride or a plane ticket. He had to hike 425 miles from Ravenna, Ohio to Scottville, Michigan. That made about six years since he last spent the night under the same roof as her. If it weren’t for Maynard’s father occasionally ignoring his pleas not to surprise him again with plane tickets to visit his mother, Maynard worried he might not even remember her face. Of course, he never complained when he did get to see her. It was just depressing when he saw how much worse things had gotten with her new husband in the picture. Thanks to that and the friction between the three of them, Maynard opted to stay at a friend’s nearby when he did go.

Maynard’s father, on the other hand, was a force of vigor. In the small world of Scottville, Loren Keenan was Maynard’s science, biology, and environmental studies teacher, as well as his wrestling coach. He taught Maynard discipline, perspective, ambition. Thanks to him, Maynard was on his way to a blue belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Still, he was a schoolteacher, and was severely underpaid for the work he did -- hence Maynard’s reluctance to accept money from him.

Never did Maynard think he’d say this, but he missed being hip tossed and having his face slammed into the mat while his father stared down at him expectantly. He missed listening to his mother’s nonsensical religious bullshit. He missed not being trapped alone in this shithole apartment.

Maynard didn’t have the energy for more heartache right now. He’d get to the letter in the morning. 

He set his beer beside the envelope. The closest to family Maynard had nowadays was Adam. They’d become friends in sophomore year art class, where Maynard had geeked out over Adam’s morbidly fascinating creations. That intrigue was requited when they realised they also shared English, and Maynard’s poetry adopted the puzzling tendency to vanish from his backpack and reappear in Adam’s back pocket. That was back when Maynard was fresh out of a relationship with Carina Round, and Adam was hellbent on pulling Maynard out of his lovesick funk by setting him up with every girl in the school. _“Date Mahsa, your music fits like two-and-two. Date Paz, she has a voice like an angel -- and how could you deny those legs? Date Lei Li, she’s awesome, she’s just like you.”_ They were amazing, they were everything Adam said and more, but Maynard valued their friendship far too much to risk making things awkward if it turned out he was just rushing to sate Adam’s voyeuristic fervor rather than his own romantic desire. So while Adam slung girls to and fro, Maynard remained single all throughout high school, perfectly happy with that fact. That’s not to say Maynard was sexless or totally departed from attraction -- he definitely wasn’t -- but the closest he got emotionally to any girl after Carina was letting Adam’s girlfriend in senior year play with his geckos. They’d sat in his room all evening, waiting for Adam to wrap up a video project he was working on with some friends. They talked about their passions and their eyes adjusted to the darkness faster than they realised the sun was setting, so they were left laughing at each other’s lame jokes in an almost pitch black apartment. It was that freaky type of lighting, where her face looked like it was morphing before Maynard’s eyes if he watched her long enough. It was nice to connect like that. Maynard’s surreal experiences were few and far between, but that night definitely made the list.

As it turned out, Adam had been blowing up both their phones, trying to get them to drive over to one of his friends’ houses for pizza and pool, but they’d both left their phones downstairs on the kitchen counter. The thought of two teenagers left alone in an empty apartment for nine hours with nothing but some geckos and old Chinese food to entertain them didn’t exactly thrill Adam. Relationships meant stress and heartbreak, and Maynard knew that better every time Adam had a messy breakup. 

That said, Adam never gave up on finding Maynard ‘the one,’ and switched tactics when he came to after a crazy college party to find Maynard passed out with his ass in the washing machine, stretching out some sorority girl’s fishnet stockings, the same shade of lipstick smeared across his face as Adam had caking his neck. Maynard reminded him every time he mentioned it that the same lipstick was also reapplied by their host every four seconds or so and Maynard was a raging feminist, but that rarely made a difference. He’d since learned to deflect Adam’s suspicions and ignore him when he tried to egg Maynard on. Some days, Maynard found it funny. Most days, it made him wonder which part of _“I don’t swing that way,”_ Adam wasn’t understanding.

But after today, Maynard was left wondering whether he himself completely understood what those words meant.

He grabbed the can and took another long swig, hoping maybe to drown the little bastards beginning to flutter around his stomach again. 

_Maynard isn’t a very common name._

That girl had eyeballed his nametag. Maybe she was just being friendly, or maybe she was taking note. Either way, she’d probably remember a name like Maynard. They were almost definitely going to need help with Jambi. Even on the off-chance that they wouldn’t, they would have to return sooner or later for supplies, right? _Right._ Maynard hoped he’d left a good enough impression on them that they’d name him if they came back. He ran his hand through his hair, laid back and stared at the ceiling fan. 

He was probably overthinking it. Maynard never had ‘butterflies’ for his girlfriends, and he knew he was madly in love with Carina Round, so it obviously wasn't attraction he felt. _Maybe I remember him from somewhere._ He couldn’t remember where from if that was the case. _He didn’t look familiar. I’m good with faces, I don’t… I don’t remember him._ Adam’s jokes were getting to Maynard’s head. Five years of hearing the same goofy accusation would do that to a man. _The kid was cute. I’m allowed to say that, right? He was handsome. Justin is good-looking too. Adam looks like a ferret, but it’s the inside that counts. That girl, though? Showstopper. Yep. All straight guys have to justify their inner-dialogue like this. That’s me. So straight._

Maynard grabbed a pillow and smothered himself frustratedly. _Better question: if I’m not straight, why is this only now coming up? You don’t just ‘turn gay’. At least… I don’t think that’s how it works. What about that college party? Maybe I had some sort of queer-awakening when I blacked out. Oh… God._ Maynard hoped even shitfaced he knew not to start macking on Adam. One of the dozens of sorority sisters hosting the party must have beat him to it. But frankly, if suspecting Maynard had gone full-blown _RuPaul’s Drag Race_ and hickied him up in front of the entire student body didn’t send Adam running, there was very little Maynard could imagine would ward him away. A relief and a bummer. If it turned out Maynard _was_ some colour of the rainbow, he’d most likely get a _“Told you so,”_ before Adam started trying to set him up with all the queers at school. _You know what? Who cares? I don’t. Queers are cool. They know how to party._ But that was a terrible lie and Maynard knew it. He had nothing against queers. His parents hadn’t brought him up on any sort of belief system for or against them. Maynard had even roomed with a transvestite for freshman year of college -- hence how he got into crossdressing -- and met some of his more flamboyant friends that way. So while the logic of his dilemma was lost on him, the one thought continually recurring in his mind was that of himself, at eight years old, staring at his disabled mother through snot and tears, waiting for her to do something -- anything -- to put a stop to the monster she married and the relentless verbal abuse he was being subjected to. The way his ears ached at the volume of his stepfather’s voice, the way that man kept shoving some navy blue bandana he’d found in Maynard’s laundry in his face. The confusion. The shame. Anger. Grief.

And his mother, just… Staring back.

_Way to ruin your evening, Maynard._ He threw the pillow at the wall and sat up to finish his beer. His mother met his stepfather at church -- otherwise known as God’s haven for homophobes and pedophiles. It wasn’t until rooming with Jonathan, the crossdresser, and asking what the fuck he had a wall of handkerchiefs for that he realised just what type of Christian his mother had married.

_“Oh Blondie, what kind of queen are you really if you don’t know the Hanky Code?”_

With a noisy crinkle, Maynard flattened the aluminum can and tossed it into the wastebasket he kept beside the door. When Jonathan had invited Maynard that night to play card games with his friends, all he could think upon looking into any of their faces was that _that_ was the reason his stepfather was so harsh on him. The reason he threw away Maynard’s stuffed animals and yanked him aside any time he wore something colourful outside the house. The reason he told Maynard to ‘man up’ when he cried and called him a pansy when he sang for his mother or got excited about school plays. No music, no art, no books, no dancing, no feelings, no puppies and kittens, no long hair, and absolutely _no_ rainbows. All because of people like Jonathan. People who didn’t repress emotions or creative energy. People who actually enjoyed their lives.

Five years of putting up with Adam’s jokes were no match for five years spent with his own stepfather.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm fucking in love with writing this story. I have so much motivation for it.
> 
> Apparently AO3 is no longer counting hits from people who aren't logged in? Kinda sucks since I just got here, but no big. If you like my writing, just drop some kudos or a comment! I appreciate the fuck outta y'all. And I promise, the Prison Break characters will be coming into bigger roles here very soon. ;)


	3. Suspect Pool

To become a licensed veterinarian, Maynard would need to secure a bachelor’s degree and a VMD degree. He was on his way there anyway, no big deal -- but he wasn’t even enrolled in a school of veterinary medicine yet. So when they sanitised the examination room that morning and Sara thought aloud all of the things she’d have to teach Maynard before she left, he took her words with a grain of salt. She was way overqualified for her job at Off The Leash -- to the point Maynard was certain she could run her own animal hospital if she wanted to -- so it wasn’t surprising that she was looking for a new job. Disheartening? Maybe a little. But unsurprising nonetheless. The majority of the shop’s traffic came from locals seeking an affordable vet. Sara could compromise business by leaving, and despite the promises she made to him that day, Maynard was a long way from taking her place. 

But Sara’s success and happiness were more important. Maynard personally would support her no matter what.

While the doctor finished preparing for her next examination, Maynard scooped up their in-house patient, a coarsely-furred brown cat, for her final grooming. This one had a bit of attitude. When she wasn’t hissing at Sara for prodding her with medical equipment, she was sleeping or people-watching. She’d ingested something that got her sick a few days back and had been under Dr. Tancredi’s care since, but made a strong recovery. The owners would be in at around 11 -- less than an hour away now. Justin reluctantly left Maynard in charge of handing the cat back after seeing its visceral reaction to Sara, so he’d spent the rest of his time the day prior memorising outgoing notes. It had been about a week now since the incident with the redheads. Maynard was getting back to his old self, unbothered by the jokes and getting out more often to clear his head. Lately, Danny had been dragging everyone out to this new dive bar a fifteen minute walk from the shop, Cute Poison. The drinks tasted like someone fermented the grime you’d find down your bathroom drain in Listerine, yet Danny and his frat buddy C-Note still drank to the point of dry-heaving. Meanwhile, Maynard could get maybe two drinks down before the regret set in. Somehow Danny conned Adam and Maynard into yet another outing after work today -- just dinner this time. It was nice to meet some new people, maybe put names to familiar faces. C-Note’s family, for example, were regulars to the pet shop. Based on their purchases, they had an impressive aquarium going on at home along with some kind of furry friend. C-Note was a fan of all things body art, which explained how Adam was so familiar with him. Tonight, Adam was bringing a friend of his own -- someone he met through that same art shop down the block, which he’d been persistent in getting Maynard to join him to. That was where he indulged in his claymation hobbyism and, evidently, was a local hotspot.

Adam must’ve heard the door open, because he opened his mouth the minute Maynard stepped from the wood laminate to the tile.

“Hey, where you been? How was overtime yesterday?”

Before him, a loud pomeranian trotted circles under the sink’s shower head, freshly bathed and waiting. Adam was wrestling its fur from a brush over a trashcan nearby.

“Oh, you know. Same-old, same-old. I’d rather hear about your afternoon.”

Based on Adam’s absentminded chatting the day prior, he was off to build on another video project -- this being the one, quote, _“you’re gonna love, Maynard.”_ Apparently he had several going on at the same time. Whenever he finished one, which happened roughly once a month, Maynard was the first to see it before it went up on his YouTube channel. He got monetised last month, which was good for him, but he only ever intended for his friends and family to see those projects. Life comes at you fast. Maynard frequently reminded Adam to remember him when he got famous. _“You’ll always have a place in my harem-- I mean, my heart,”_ he’d replied.

“It was great. I’m messing around with this thing, trying to get it right -- the Sandercurl technique? I want to use it for an upcoming project, but it’s way harder than it looks.” The dog piped down the minute Adam touched it again. “The manager there actually, uh… She wants to buy the figures when I’m done with them. Bake ‘em, polish ‘em, sell ‘em. Sales are going up on art of... Kind of a similar vibe, so she wants to try it out.”

“That’s awesome, Adam.” But really, he knew Adam’s talents would get him places even back in high school. Adam glanced at Maynard briefly, just to acknowledge his presence, and eyed the way he was cradling the cat. 

“You could make your job a hundred times easier if you put the cat _inside_ of the kennel, you know.”

“Eh, she’s not a fan of that idea. Are you, Fluffy?” Her ears twitched obliviously. “I think she just told you to go fuck yourself.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised. I saw her with Sara. Jeez. Can't believe that's the same animal.”

Maynard set the kennel down beside Adam’s workspace and readjusted the feline in his arms to scratch her between the ears. She did that little _prrbt?_ cats do when you startle them. “Yeah, she’s pretty docile when she doesn’t associate you with medical equipment.”

“Moody either way. She scratched me when I was filling her food bowl.”

“Scared, probably. Big human reaching into her cramped little kennel. I’d panic too,” Maynard shrugged, putting down the cat once the Pomeranian was put back into its cage. Of course, it started yapping away again once Adam locked the door, so the cat wasn't thrilled.

Adam looked at the cat and pushed his disbelief through his nostrils. “Of course _you_ would. You’re a regular cat guy, huh? ...Like Freddie Mercury?”

Maynard gave Adam a look. Of course, Adam played dumb and proceeded with his duties, cleaning the counter, then running a new brush through the cat’s fur and letting the clumps collect on the surface beneath her. Since that run-in a week ago, Maynard had gotten over his funk. Really. Within a few days, he decided that two freshmen and a bunny just wasn’t enough to take that massive a toll on his mental state. There was a gay pride parade that ran through Michigan every June and made every summer cheerier without fail. Not once did Maynard ever hear his friends say something negative about it. Not once did Maynard ever hear the people who really mattered to him say something negative about it. And Maynard himself wasn’t homophobic, so it didn’t really matter. If his discomfort with it was only instilled by his stepfather, he was doing everything in his power to laugh in its face.

“Yes.”

The brush’s rhythmic hush from the cat’s shoulder blades to her thighs paused. Adam’s chin was parallel to his shoulders for a moment, but his eyes made no move to meet Maynard’s. If it weren’t for the timing of that pause, he would’ve questioned whether Adam had heard him at all. That silence lasted a good dozen seconds. It was only overridden by the dog’s incessant barking. Then, with no further comment, the brush continued its pattern, and Adam was back to work. It was like nothing had happened at all. Frankly, Maynard wasn’t sure what he was expecting when he said that. But he couldn’t deny he was left at a loss. The cat was slow-blinking at Adam. Their amends were made. They’d be fine. Maynard would be of better use to the customers anyway.

At the cash register were several people, lined up. Most were wielding dog toys and trying to keep some hyper children under control. The store was much brighter lately. More alive. Fall meant pesticides and poisonous mushrooms which kept the doctor busy, but it also meant owners were starting to forgive their pets for summerly sheds and wiped out the treat aisles. One fact to tarnish that vibe was that, once again, LJ was nowhere to be seen. He hadn’t come in for three or four days now, and Maynard was starting to get concerned. He wasn’t LJ’s keeper by any means, but the kid was sixteen and already had a criminal record. His absence could have been for one of a million reasons. Say what they would about his work ethic, the entire store was tense with worry. Sara most so, curiously enough. She didn’t seem like the type to normally care for his antics.

Maynard grabbed a thing of fish food and strolled along the side wall, sprinkling it into the tank. Watching them would chase his boredom away; he didn’t have much to do until handling the cat’s owners at eleven, and he’d likely be left with idle hands after that as well. Although mostly guppies and goldfish, the fish here reminded Maynard of his mother. Before the aneurysm that left her paralysed, she'd bought him three betta fish: Blue, a flashy halfmoon; Breña, white with a brilliant red-violet tail and fins; and Thomas, who was especially aggressive. As a child, Maynard had always wanted a tank on his nightstand so that he could lie in bed and watch them flitter through the water. He could still vividly recall his elation when his mother finally allowed him to keep one of the fish in his room -- but not before weeks of teaching him to care for them. Despite how fluid and unreal they looked, suspended effortlessly in their habitats, betta fish _were_ real and very much alive. Maynard learned to feed them, change out their water, keep their tanks clean, and keep their environment fresh. They were more than a bundle of scales staring out emptily at the world. Those were three entire lives Maynard was responsible for; three individual experiences of the world. Unable to let go of those memories after the move, Maynard named his three geckos after them: Blue, the pampered leopard gecko; Breña, the sweetest and smallest; and Thomas, especially rambunctious. It didn’t keep the memories fresh or revamp the past. That’s not to be grim -- it was just the truth. At most, they reminded Maynard that his mother was a vacuum of empathy. Once she cared, she cared too much, and it was impossible to make her stop. Call that virtue or kindness. It certainly taught Maynard a thing or two. But he just called it hamartia.

“Beautiful, aren’t they?”

Maynard pulled from his daze at the familiarly raspy voice. Charles Westmoreland, a regular. He normally came by with his aging cat, Marilyn, tucked close to his body, but Marilyn was nowhere to be seen. The old man had his head tilted, admiring a couple of angelfish tailing each other in a dance.

“Yeah… Yeah, they are. My mom and I used to keep some bettas around the house. I loved just… Watching them.”

Westmoreland nodded understandingly. They followed the fish for a bit longer, not once straying from their routine. Maynard capped the food and turned to the elder.

“She still around? Your mother?”

Maynard physically recoiled at that question. “…Uh, yeah. I just… Had to move away. College. I miss her,” he lied. About college, not missing her. But that second fact changed by the hour, considering the company she kept. The topic made his head spin. “Can I help you?”

Westmoreland's head turned slowly. He was an older man, around sixty years old, with greyish white hair and a matching moustache. However benevolent, his height, wiry body, and piercing eyes kept him from being entirely unimposing. “I need a new litter box. Ol’ Marilyn’s getting too lazy to deal with the doors. Something without a cover, short enough for her to get into, but tall enough that she won’t get kitty litter all over.”

“Gotcha. Let’s take a look,” Maynard invited. Westmoreland meandered patiently alongside him as he peered through the aisles. Maynard was faintly aware of the elder studying his face and stride. Just swifter than would have been unsettling, he started on current events. The weather’s been crazy lately. Never seen it rain on an eighty degree day. Did you hear about that new ice cream parlour that opened up off the freeway? It’s probably a fifteen minute drive from here. Rocky Road’s my favourite. What’s yours? My late wife liked that one too. She would’ve loved you. What was with that robbery in Custer last week? They usually here in Scottville, right?

Until the robberies came up, Maynard was disengaged. Polite, but disengaged.

“I heard about that on the news,” Maynard commented, standing away from the litter boxes once he found them to skim over the options and find one that matched Westmoreland’s description. “Scary stuff.”

“Unsettling, how close by it is. This guy... Breaking a kid’s jaw? Christ.”

“I heard it could be a gang.”

“Could be. That lady from before’s probably involved, in that case. The cops are questioning around about it. Hopefully they catch this guy. Wouldn’t be surprised if not though.”

That was grim, but Westmoreland was right. Maynard nodded toward a litter box and led Westmoreland over. “Maybe now that Lang is sheriff, there’s a better chance of it. Sullins kinda sucked.”

He seemed uninterested in the product. “Couldn’t agree more. I like her. Saw how serious it was and put that detective to work. He should’ve been here since Day One.”

“He seemed strung out.”

“That’s how you know he’s relentless. That’s exactly what we need right now. Scottville's such a small world, you don’t want to suspect anyone, but... Chances are, those criminals live right next door.”

The bell outside Adam’s door rang noisily three times, splitting Maynard’s attention. The buzz of the world outside Westmoreland’s suspicions ebbed back into focus. That bell meant Adam was done with the cat. She was ready to go whenever. It also meant an excuse to dismiss himself from the conversation, which Maynard was extremely grateful for. He turned back to Westmoreland and gestured toward the group of cat box candidates. “If you have any questions, find someone in a green vest. Or wait for me, if you can. I’ll be right out.”

“Can do. Earn that paycheck, Keenan.”

Westmoreland tended to ramble when things got too quiet, just thinking aloud. Not much was known about the criminals. They may not have even been from Michigan. Maynard shook off the unease. He was being paranoid.

Back in the grooming room, Adam was knelt beside the counter with one hand on the brush handle and the other plucking its teeth, watching the cat’s eyes dilate every time he pulled one back. She looked about ready to pounce. The door shut quietly behind Maynard. His presence didn’t faze Adam this time.

“Old Head’s being creepy today,” he muttered.

“Westmoreland? He’s harmless.”

“That’s why it’s weird,” Maynard peered over his shoulder at the old man, half expecting him to be staring right back. Fortunately not. Westmoreland was knelt next to someone’s daughter, bearing some type of coin. Typical old man behaviour. Meanwhile, Adam didn’t so much as shift his weight. The cat ducked her head, tail swishing when he drew his finger across a fascinating series of bristles. “I see you’ve settled your differences.”

“Yeah…” Adam finally returned, rising to his feet and scratching the cat’s neck when she viciously attacked. “Little Miss Claws, she ain't so bad after all.”

The woman at the front desk tapped on the glass separating them. The cat’s owner stood off to the side of the line, clinging to the strap of her purse and waving excitedly, more at her cat than at either of the employees.

“Showtime. Grab the kennel,” Maynard instructed, scooping the cat and soothing her paws down when she reached out again for her most recent obsession. Adam tidied up and followed Maynard out.

The send-off went smoothly. The woman was just happy to see her cat feeling better and was so preoccupied ogling her that Maynard began to wonder halfway through his monologue what better use he could’ve made of his time than memorising Sara’s notes. _Keep her well-groomed, switch to soft foods for a while, clean up any discharge you see around her face, her appetite may suffer to congestion issues, petting her or dabbing some food around her muzzle may better encourage her, woman, are you even listening to me? God, I could’ve been writing my dad back. Yes ma’am, I love your little brat too, that’s why I’m trying to help. Is Adam hitting on that milf in line? Man..._ And just like that, the cat was back in the kennel and being sent off with an owner who, no doubt, would be driving her back in a few weeks with the same worries as before. _I love my job. I love my job._

“That was impressive,” Adam approved. “Never seen you that slick with a woman in your life.”

Maynard’s eyes dragged undramatically in Adam’s direction. His best friend half-laughed.

“Speaking of, uh… Was there something to that Freddie Mercury thing earlier?” The sudden sincerity gave Maynard whiplash. “Something that… Maybe you want to talk about?”

Stunned, Maynard was silent. Part of him still wanted to believe this was a joke. Sooner or later, Adam would double over in hysterics. He couldn't be serious. But part of him also knew Adam better than that. In the high school cafeteria, when Maynard would push his food around his tray, or on the steps leading to the college dorm, so homesick that it made him nauseous, Adam was the only constant. Driving him to keep writing if he hit a block, offering to take him for a change in scenery, talking some sense into him when he considered moving back to Ohio to be near his mother. Beneath all the dry humour was still Adam -- a pain in the ass, but the kind Maynard would pay good money for.

“…Maynard?”

There was a reason he kept him around all this time.

“Uh... Y-Yeah. No, I mean… I don’t know. Uh… I-I’m a dog person too.”

That confused Adam. It confused Maynard too, so he spun on his heel and headed off. To anywhere, as long as it wasn’t around Adam. _What the fuck just happened?_

“Maynard!” Justin called out from the door of Sara’s exam room, holding open a folder before him. “A word.”

 _Oh, thank God,_ Maynard broke into a nervous trot to meet his manager. As he came into earshot, Justin's exchanges with the vet ceased, but he caught something like _“…Used his sick days to run off to a music festival in Lansing. His dad’s pissed,”_ and noticed Sara continually glancing over at the lady in LJ’s place. Maynard wasn’t a fan of that implication.

“What’s going on?”

Justin nodded toward his office. “Some kids called, said they wanted to talk to you. Something about a rabbit. Check it out when you have the chance.”

 _Oh..._ Forcing words around the heartbeat pulsing in Maynard’s throat felt like inducing vomit. “I’ll do it now. Did you catch their names?”

“I only talked to one: the girl. Wrote down her name and number and stuck it to the computer screen, you can’t miss it.”

Without another word, Maynard was off to the office. His body moved outside of his volition. His mind was preoccupied coming up with an excuse for his urgency. He wanted a distraction from Adam. He wanted Justin to see his dedication to customer service. He wanted to hear a new voice. Meanwhile, he quickly located the note -- _Minerva,_ scrawled across a little green sticky -- punched the number into the phone, and soaked up the dial tone. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to quickly rehearse what he was going to say, scrambled to make something up. _“Hello, it’s Maynard. Yes, that’s how you pronounce my name. What’s up with your bunny?” No-- “How’s the rabbit doing?” That's better. “Heard you were having problems with the rabbit. What’s up?” Minerva is a really pretty name. It fits her. I wonder if she--_

_“Hello?”_

Maynard’s racing thoughts stopped dead in their tracks. Just like that. For a minute, he forgot how to breathe. So much for all the people skills Adam had just patted him on the back for. That honeyed voice went straight to his knees. Maynard cradled the mouthpiece as if he was afraid it’d slip from his grasp and sunk into Justin’s chair. It was a soft voice. Deep, kind of, but soft. It didn't have the girl's familiar faux social-friendly thing going on. His jaw hung open. All that time Maynard had spent spiraling let him lose sight of what triggered it in the first place. That boy. The one who smelled like pumpkin and gave him butterflies. _This one._ The one on the other end of the line.

_“…Is this May-nahrd? From the pet store?”_

_Whoa._ “Uh… Y-Yes. Yeah, it’s Maynard. How can I help you?”

_“Hey! So, uh, we have some questions about Jambi, if that’s alright.”_

_They kept her name._ Maynard glanced around the shop. As much as he would have loved to make like Sara, lock the door, and get lost in the telephone with some mystery man, the store was too busy to risk it. “I… Can’t help you with that right at this moment, the store is packed. Would you mind calling back sometime tomorrow?”

_“No, we’re gonna be busy… How about this: Will you be working Monday when we get her fixed? Might be easier to talk in person anyway.”_

“I will! Yes. I mean, I haven’t gotten my schedule for next week, but I’m always here, pretty much, so…” Maynard bit his lip when the boy started laughing. He didn’t complain. It was nice. But Maynard didn’t know what he found so funny. “I’m sure I’ll be here. When’s your appointment?”

_“Two o’ clock?”_

“Perfect. Yeah. And if you or your sister wanna swing by sooner than that, that works too.”

 _“Minerva’s not my sister,”_ the boy chuckled. _“She’s my best friend.”_

“Oh -- my bad.” _They must be roommates then. That makes way more sense. Why didn’t I think of that?_

_“That’s alright, we get it all the time.”_

_He has a really great laugh,_ Maynard thought soberly. He was still hunched over the mouthpiece as if he had something to hide. He glanced out the doorway. No one in his line of sight even knew he was in there. 

_“Well, uh… May-nerd -- is that how you pronounce it?”_

“You said it perfectly,” Maynard smiled. His name sounded great when it was pronounced correctly. _...I like how he pronounces it._

_“Awesome. Uh, that’s… That’s all we needed. Thank you so much.”_

“Wait -- real quick, writing myself a reminder as we speak -- what’s your name?”

The line fell silent for a moment. Maynard winced and prayed his lie wasn’t obvious. He didn’t need a name for anything. He just couldn’t rein his curiosity. But the boy spoke again, quieter, and soothed it. _“Seth. I’m Seth Hoffner, my friend is Minerva Haze.”_

“Seth…” Maynard chewed on the inside of his cheek. “Okay, Seth. Thank you. I’m glad you called.”

_“Me too. Or -- you know.”_

Maynard laughed this time, then bit his tongue. “Right. Well, I’ll see you and Minerva on Monday. Have a nice afternoon.”

_“We will. Take care.”_

Maynard kept the phone to his ear until he heard Seth hang up. _Seth._ It was poetic, kind of. The ‘S’ and the ‘th’ sounds, just felt quiet and calm, made Maynard feel quiet and calm. _Hoffner. Same with the 'H' and the 'F's. He probably never got yelled at as a kid. You can’t say that name and sound threatening._ Maynard put the phone up and stared contemplatively. Processing. Minerva. Seth. Jambi. Monday. _Alright._ A smile clawed through Maynard’s composure, but he couldn’t let that elation get the best of him. _Elation? No. I gotta stop thinking like this,_ Maynard resigned, rubbing away the invisible strings yanking so ardently at the corners of his mouth. He took a deep breath and returned to work.

The rest of the day came and went like a blur. Maynard was too preoccupied trying to dissect his own unexpected thoughts to focus much on any task he was set to. Even later on, sitting at dinner with the guys, it took asking Danny a third time why Justin hadn’t come out with them for him to absorb the fact that something was going down between him and his roommate. In other news, the new guy Adam brought along was nice enough. Fernando Sucre, apparently the husband of the art shop’s manager. Married two years now, and he still talked about her with that puppy-love type glow. And he talked about her a _lot._ As in, barely got his hand in the appetiser before the other guys finished it. In Fernando’s defence, his wife sounded like his entire world, and Adam, who knew her, seemed to think that was reasonable, so Maynard held his peace.

“What about you, Blondie? Why so quiet?” C-Note demanded between peppering his salad. Maynard snapped out of it. Everyone at the table was eyeing him on and off. It occurred to him that his only measure of how much time had passed between them arriving, being seated, and him now being interrogated was how much food remained on each of their plates. Danny was a quick eater, about halfway done. Fernando was chatty and rather slow, but still made a good dent in his share. Maynard’s own plate hadn’t been touched. To his surprise, Adam wasn’t already cracking a joke about it. Actually, he seemed like he was awaiting a response as well.

“That obvious?” Maynard laughed nervously. 

“Man, we been talking about those robberies nobody’s got enough of and you haven’t stopped staring at the specials,” C-Note tsked, reaching across the table to take the mini menu away from him and stick it back on the condiment rack. “Out with it.”

“Now that our vet is on her way out, he’s conspiring to take her place,” Danny alleged, tossing back a crouton he stole from C-Note’ plate like a pill. The guys reassessed Maynard with this news.

“You people,” Maynard chuckled, picking his spaghetti around. Unfortunately for him, they didn’t ease off. Four pairs of eyes held fast to him and his fiddling. One by one, he met each of them. “…What?”

“Okay, something’s definitely going on with you, man,” Danny gave in. “This gotta do with that girl who decided to call you at work through Justin’s office? He told me she was talking about a… What was it? A rabbit?”

“That’s code for something,” Fernando wiped his mouth with a napkin. “No doubt.”

“Okay,” Maynard forcefully broke up their theorising before they could come to what inevitable conclusion they would about the rabbit code. “That was a customer, she got a rabbit the other day and wanted advice. It has nothing to do with that.”

“Yeah? Then what, hotshot?” C-Note pressured. Maynard could feel Adam’s silent pity from across the table. He’d have to remember to thank him later. For now, Maynard was stuck locking eyes with the wily menu thief. Weighing his options. Digging his own six-foot hole the way he racked his brain. He could tell the truth, but he seriously wasn't ready to admit to that. He could stay silent, or maybe throw off the conversation. That would only affirm their suspicions. _I also could’ve paid them the common decency of my attention, but look where we are now._ Maynard nudged his bowl aside to fold his forearms over the table, steadily gazing right back at C-Note. Dark, quizzical eyes pried at the windows to Maynard’s soul. He squinted. The others at the table seemed to find this hysterical. Even Adam stifled a snort in his hand. Maynard still stalled for a response. Scrambling. For the third time that day.

“The robberies,” he invented. The table was still, aside from Danny and Fernando’s exchange of whispers. “It’s me they’re looking for.”

The humour faded from C-Note’s face, warping into something like skepticism. He and Danny exchanged a look. Adam wasn’t fazed one way or the other. He knew Maynard too well. Fernando, on the other hand, leaned back in the booth as far as he could as if he could disappear with his beer. 

“...Jesus, you people are too easy.”

“Oh, come on,” C-Note exclaimed. “You’re really not gonna tell us?”

Maynard shrugged and went back to picking at his pasta with a fork. “It’s not a big deal, sometimes I just get in a funk. But those robberies are a part of it, y’know? The pictures of that girl’s jaw, the mom’s witness report… I used to go to school with one of the victims.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Old Head said something today about Scottville being a small town. Just makes you think. We probably know the guy and are totally clueless.”

“Damn…” Adam muttered, but the way his eyes anchored to Maynard made him think he wasn’t entirely focused on the topic at hand. “That’s traumatic.”

“Yeah. Watch your backs, lock your doors, trust no bitch…” Maynard trailed off, finally spearing a meatball and plucking it off the fork with his teeth.

“Well, it’s not Maynard at any rate,” Danny grinned. “You couldn’t throw a punch to save your life.”

“He took wrestling and martial arts in high school. He could whoop you with one arm tied behind his back,” Adam informed of his still-scrawny classmate. C-Note seemed impressed by this evaluation; Danny was a bodybuilder and the height disparity between the two spanned nearly a foot.

Maynard -- humbly or awkwardly -- switched the subject. “We have a code about self-defence in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. I’d lose my belt if I pulled anything like that.”

“That jaw wasn’t no Jiu Jitsu, dog,” Fernando chimed in after a long swig from his glass. “That was brute force.”

Adam snorted. “So we’re looking for someone strong. Danny, C-Note, congrats; you made the top of the list.”

“Please,” C-Note laughed.

“Have you seen LJ’s dad? Dude’s like a tank,” Danny mentioned.

“Speaking of,” Maynard asked, thinking back to Sara and Justin’s hushed-tones, “heard the kid ran off for a concert?”

“What if LJ did it?” Adam interrupted. An entire table of heads turned. Fernando had never met LJ, but seemed engaged anyway. C-Note, on the other hand, scoffed.

“Think about it: he’s gone all the time, regular delinquent, hates society, hates authority -- he’s basically a walking vessel of teenage angst. It’s possible.”

“Teenage angst cranks up My Chemical Romance and smears on black eyeliner. It don’t break jaws.”

“Fernando, you’ve never watched a horror movie in your life and it shows.”

“They did say it might be the work of a gang,” Maynard agreed. “LJ’s sixteen. He’s impressionable.”

Danny wasn’t convinced. “I don’t know. LJ’s not an angry kid.” 

“I’m with D on this one,” C-Note conceded. “There’s a difference between anger and rebellion. LJ wants to get back at his parents, not some random ass yuppies.”

“What do any of us know about gangs, really?” Adam backtracked. He clearly didn’t expect the remark about LJ to stir this up. “The closest any of us have gotten to a hivemind mentality is you two and your frat.”

“Maybe that’s the point,” Fernando suggested. Whether or not he was joking was yet to be determined. “Frat, gang, after-school club -- what’s the difference? Burn your textbooks. Anger or no anger, kid just wants a place to belong.”

The perspective of an outsider was welcomed, but Maynard was tempted to remind Fernando that this was a coworker and friend they were talking about. He couldn’t find the words to phrase it politely. A silent lapse in time let the group bask in that. Luckily, Danny broke the tension by abruptly dunking a piece of chicken into the ranch left over from their appetiser. “No offence, but that’s a bit of a reach, man.”

Fernando shrugged a little and returned to his comfortable third-wheel silence.

“When did this turn into mock trial?” C-Note joked. “I showed up for a Long Island Iced Tea, not to join the debate team. LJ’s probably as clueless as the rest of us are.”

Although that successfully reverted their theorising for the rest of the evening to lighthearted jabs, every suspicion lurked with Maynard. Even if not LJ, it was quite possible someone he knew was capable of putting that family in the ER. Someone he worked with, socialised with, someone he’d passed by on the way to the restaurant that evening, someone sitting at the next table. Maybe someone sitting at _this_ table. It could be anyone. The entirety of Scottville was a suspect pool, and all anyone could talk about was the shark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hit a bit of a block while writing this one, sorry for the delay. On the bright side, I made a little trailer for Stop Motion on Twitter. If you want to go check it out, follow [this link!](https://twitter.com/inkyfluoresce/status/1248456850955104256?s=20) Hope everyone's surviving lockdown. Love ya! :)


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